Chapter 145: [X] - 145: On Her Lap
Alex was surprised to see that his father, Alessio von Winterfang, was also present.
Alessio sat beside Vespera on the wide couch near the tall windows, they were pretty close to each other, the two of them clearly in the middle of a conversation that had not been meant for an audience.
Papers and a half empty tea set occupied the low table in front of them.
The moment Alex and Zara stepped fully into the study, both of them turned toward the doorway at the same time.
A brief silence settled over the room.
Alex felt the shift through the bond before he heard anything.
Zara was planning something.
The intention was sharp and far too cheerful.
He tried to warn her.
’Zara, do not—’
She spoke first, voice perfectly innocent and timed to cut across whatever he had been about to send.
"Did we interrupt something important? We can always come later if this is a bad time."
Alessio rubbed the back of his head and turned toward Vespera with the expression of a man who already knew how the next few minutes were going to unfold and had decided resistance was not worth the effort.
Vespera looked at Zara.
"It has been a while since I trained you," Vespera said.
"Maybe you need some more training advice from me."
Zara’s presence in the bond spiked with pure, immediate bad feeling.
’Alex, quickly ask what you came here for, right now, before this conversation continues!’
Alex could not resist the opening.
’I am suddenly interested in drama like you,’ he said through the bond, keeping his face neutral.
’You will be alone with her in your room later, so reconsider that interest carefully, Alex...’
Alex really wanted to see where the conversation between Zara and Vespera would go.
But the threat in Zara’s mental voice was real enough that he decided not to push his luck any further.
’Now you owe me one, don’t you dare forget about it.’ He interrupted before Vespera could continue down that particular path.
"I want your help with something."
Vespera turned her full attention to him.
"Alex, Come here."
He did as she said.
One moment he was standing a few steps away from the couch.
The next moment he was sitting on her lap without any clear memory of how the transition had happened.
The movement had been too smooth and too fast for him to track.
’It felt like I actually teleported, how fast are these people, I can’t even imagine what their agility attribute looks like.’
Zara giggled out loud.
When Vespera’s eyes shifted toward her, Zara looked away toward the window and started whistling low under her breath, the picture of someone who had seen nothing, heard nothing, and was deeply invested in the quality of the afternoon light.
Vespera shuffled Alex’s hair with one hand, the motion familiar and unhurried, the same way she had done since he was small enough to fit on the couch without his feet touching the floor.
"I saw you yesterday," she said.
"I was quite happy to see that you can already use a lower level of Shadow Mantle."
"The control was still rough around the edges, but the foundation is solid."
"Most people never reach that stage after their first contact with the element."
Alex blinked.
"Where were you? I did not even see you in the hall."
"No one present was strong enough to feel my presence if I did not want them to," Vespera answered simply.
"The training hall is not exactly a place where I need to announce myself."
Alex was shocked into a brief silence.
The idea that his mother had been in the training hall the entire time, watching the three against one match from beginning to end without a single person detecting her, settled slowly into place.
Not even the people from abyss section, the shadow-affinity users, had noticed anything.
Alessio spoke from the other side of the couch, his tone practical rather than scolding.
"Every time you do something like this in public, your mother and I have to deal with all the political fallout that comes afterward."
"All the reports and questions that keep coming in, the meetings that follow lasts far longer than they should."
"I am glad you are improving, but I want you to understand that everything you do in front of the others has a real impact on us as well."
Alex remembered Valerius’s words from the corridor the day before.
Consequences.
The warning sat differently now that his father was saying nearly the same thing from the other direction.
There were clearly layers of political movement in this world that he was still not fully privy to, mostly because he had never bothered to step into those circles and learn the weight of each public action, yet.
Vespera’s hand stayed in his hair, steady and warm.
"What do you need?"
Before Alex could answer, Alessio interrupted with a sharp look directed straight at him.
"I am not allowing you another entry into the treasury no matter what you say."
"You have already stolen something worth almost a quarter of this capital’s liquid value."
"That conversation is closed."
Alex put on a mildly hurt expression, the kind he had perfected years ago for exactly these moments.
"I never stole anything! You were the one who allowed it, I just followed the rules you set at the time."
Alessio’s mouth twitched.
He looked at Vespera with the expression of a man seeking confirmation that he was not imagining the sheer audacity in front of him.
"Are you seeing this? Look at how he is trying to act innocent right now."
"It’s the same face he used when he was ten."
Vespera’s answer was calm and final.
"Let him have it, maybe it will be useful to him, his power is not something we have seen before, if it helps him that it’s okay."
The memory rose without warning.
It was his tenth birthday.
The Royal Treasury.
The day the rules had been tested and—
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End of Chapter 145: On Her Lap
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